


Marriage at First Sight

by Adventuresofb3e



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-24 11:53:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15630165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adventuresofb3e/pseuds/Adventuresofb3e
Summary: How far are we willing to go to find love?Do we leave it to chance, fate or science?Can love be found in the simple base of compatibility or is it something created and built through experiences, moments and the will to overcome the smallest details?





	Marriage at First Sight

Every sound that carried through the small city studio loft seemed amplified as Nicole’s hand hovered over the click-pad of her MacBook. The humming of the refrigerator, rain falling lightly on the fire escape outside the window, warm air whooshing out of the ventilation ducts, the small shallow breaths that she was trying not to take too rapidly and the hammering of her heart in her chest. The rest of her future was riding on her present dilemma.  
To click or not to click.

What the fuck was she about to do.

“What the fuck am I about to do?”

Her only solace in this moment came from the soft meow of her orange tabby cat. A sign, in her opinion, from the universe telling her to just do it already. Stealing herself one last moment, she closed her eyes and tipped her head back, taking a deep breathe before tapping the mouse pad of her laptop with her index finger. 

“Welp Nicole...here we go, you idiot” she chastised herself, pushing off the couch to set her laptop on its charger before heading straight for the bathroom. 

For whatever reason unbeknownst to Nicole, big life-altering decisions always gave her the need to shower. A chance to wash away the anxiety of doubt and think through the areas of her life that were about to change. It helped when she had chosen to live with her mom after her parents’ divorce, when she accepted college entry to an out of state school and after she submitted her paperwork into the police academy.

The hot water was calming as she stood directly under the shower head, letting the water flow through her short red locks and down the toned muscles of her shoulders and back. She stayed there under the water until it began to run cold. No doubt that the universe was once again nudging her to buck up and get on with her day. 

The soft cotton material of her favorite sweatpants and old police academy shirt were a welcomed exchange from the stiff police uniforms she had worn for the past two weeks that now lay strewn about her room. After so many days of only being home for a few hours of sleep between shifts, Nicole had finally noticed that her apartment was a little messier than she usually allowed it to get. Various food delivery and take out boxes sat on her kitchen counters, there were dirty dishes in the sink and her pillow and bed comforter were thrown in a crumpled mess on her well-worn couch. Nicole had not planned on spending her first day off cleaning, but she knew there was no way she was going to enjoy lounging around all day if her apartment was a wreck. Grabbing a hair tie from her nightstand, she pulled back what she could of her damp hair and got to work. 

Nicole had barely finished cleaning the last drinking glass from what was left of the sink full of dirty dishes when the buzzer to front door of her building went off, startling her cat from its spot on the window ledge. She stood up on her tiptoes to look out the window planted on the opposite side of her kitchen sink. Straining to peer at the sidewalk three floors below, she couldn’t see anyone standing at the front door. The officer let out an annoyed breath as she shut off the water tap and snagged the dish rag that hung off the oven handle. Drying her hands enough to not be electrocuted, she walked over to the speaker box next to her front door. 

“Hello?” she said while holding down the worn yellowed button on the brown box. Despite the retro chic feel of her apartment, with bare brick inner walls, original exposed metal rafters and window fire escape- the speaker box was the one thing that Nicole wished they would’ve updated. God knows how many tenants had used that eye sore. 

A knock at the wooden front door startled Nicole just as she was about to speak into the speaker box again. Her cop instincts took over as she cautiously moved towards the entryway of her apartment, being careful to not step on the one squeaky wooden plank that was in front of the door. Placing a steadying hand on the door, she leaned towards it- taking a look through the peephole. Something or someone was obstructing her view of the outside hallway. Turning her head, she placed her ear against the smooth grain of the door, straining to hear anything that might justify the blood rushing through her veins and the hairs standing up on the back on her neck. Keeping her ear against the door, Nicole carefully reached for the handle of the drawer of her entryway table where she kept one of her personal concealed firearms. Another knock sounded from the outside of the door as Nicole took a deep breath, gripping the handle of her handgun and placing her index finger along the safety. She turned the doorknob and cautiously pulled the door open just a crack, stepping to the side so she was out of the line of site. Neither she nor the person on the opposite side said a word and for a moment there was only silence before she heard the rustle of a plastic bag.

“Haught, you there? Open the damn door, it’s freezing out here!”

Nicole rolled her eyes, releasing an anxious breath and the stress in her shoulders as she slammed the door shut and unclasped the chain lock above her head. Her guest was met with a less than amused look when she opened the door for them again, stepping aside so they could enter her little apartment. A young blonde woman of similar built walked in, wiping her feet on the inner door mat, eliciting a squeak from the flooring underneath it. Water dripped off of the large plastic bag she carried in her hands. Turning to greet her friend, the firearm in her hand caught her off-guard. 

“Jesus, Nicole! Put that thing away, what’s wrong with you?!”

“What’s wrong with me?! What’s wrong with you?! You know better than to sneak into a cop’s apartment building and covering the peephole with your thumb. You didn’t even answer me when I called outside!” she said, walking around her friend to place her handgun back in the drawer.

“One of your neighbors let me in and I was out of breath from taking the stairs” the girl said as she dumped her large plastic trash bag off to the side and walked towards the couch in the living area. “You’ve obviously put way too many hours on the clock if you’re pulling your gun out just because someone doesn’t answer you when you say ‘hello’” her friend mocked. 

Nicole walked past her friend to finish her task with putting up the now clean dishes, annoyance still draped across her features, “Yeah, well I’m off now, aren’t I?” there was a little more bite in her statement than what she had meant. It fell on deaf ears as her friend continued to chastise her.

“And why the hell is your gun in a table drawer and not locked in a safe? Jesus, which academy did you graduate from? Sesame Street?” 

Nicole had to admit that her friend was right, she needed to put it back in her safe. However, she wasn’t about to spend her first day off in weeks being nagged by her best friend, it was bad enough that she was spending it cleaning so far.

“So why exactly are you here Riley?” she questioned over her shoulder.

“What? We have to be on the job to hangout?”

Nicole thought back to the large trash bag Riley had lugged into her apartment and realization immediately clicked in her head. “If you needed to do laundry, all you had to do was ask” she said, her voice lacking amusement. She had been so wrapped up working her back to back shifts, she had almost forgot her partner mentioning that her washer had broken last week. Nicole had meant to offer when they were on patrol a few days ago, but the thought had escaped her when another call had come in over the radio.

“Meh, laundry was just an added benefit of your friendship and hanging out at your place” she said with a cheeky smile. “Speaking of, dude- this place is a wreck” Riley propped her socked feet up on the coffee table, making no move to help her friend. 

“Yeah, I realized that, thank you captain obvious” Nicole finished the dishes and began to throw away all of the food containers that scattered the kitchen, “Why don’t you make yourself useful and order some pizza or something, I’m almost done” she joked halfheartedly, tying off the full trash bag and pulling it out of the garbage bin.  
She grabbed her laptop from its charger and tossed it into her friends lap on her way to the front door to throw the trash out. Nicole slipped into her Vans that had been tossed by the entry way before walking out and down the stairs to the garbage chute one floor down. She could feel the chill from the outside that had permeated through the single paned windows in the building hallways and the gusts that traveled up through the cracks of the trash chute door. There were still a couple of weeks left in September, but the cooler rainy weather had swept across the city. One of the other officers in Nicole’s division had arrived to work last week cursing the rain and grumbling on about them having a bad winter this year. She never could understand why people hated the cold so much. Cold weather meant sweatpants, hoodies and a good reason to stay home and snuggle with her cat. 

“And this is why you’re single, Nicole” she mutter to herself with a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth, “for now.”

She walked up the hallway stairs and entered her front door half expecting Riley to either be raiding her fridge or in the process of getting her laundry started. What she wasn’t prepared for was to return to her partner sitting upright on the edge of the couch, feet planted, arms crossed and a glare set stern enough to make you relive every moment you ever did something wrong. Nicole was about to ask her what was the matter when her eye caught sight of her laptop sitting open on the coffee table, facing towards the door with her most recent email opened on her laptop screen. 

“What the hell is this?!” Riley asked in exasperation, pointing to the laptop on the coffee table.

Everything about this situation caught Nicole off guard, putting her in an immediate position of defense. Pushing the front door shut as an afterthought, she moved towards the coffee table and swept up the laptop snapping it shut, “It’s none of your business, that’s what. I said order pizza, not snoop in my personal emails.”

“First of all” Riley’s tone changed from irritation to sass, holding up her hand to Nicole as if to plea her case, “you said to order pizza from your laptop. It’s not my fault that you don’t log out of your emails. Shame on you for that by the way, you’re a cop. We should be paranoid of everything, including cyber crime”

The small unexpected jab broke Nicole’s resolve. The tension in her shoulders melted and she trudged defeatedly to the couch, plopping next to her partner. If she was going to share this news with anyone, whom better than her best friend?

“So when exactly were you going to tell me that you’re getting married...to a stranger?”

“I dunno, after it happened?” She didn’t have to look at Riley to see the look she was getting at her answer, she could feel it. She felt it even more with the quick punch to the arm that came soon after. “Owe!”

“You’re a bad friend, you know that?” it was a rhetorical question and Nicole knew that Riley didn’t really mean it but she still felt a little guilty for not sharing this with her partner. Other than her mom and older sister, Riley was the only other family that Nicole had. 

“I’m sorry, Riles. I wanted to tell you, but I’m still trying to process everything myself” Nicole didn’t know what else to say or where to even start. 

“Okay, well how about we start at the part where you decided you wanted to get married...again”

Nicole let her face fall into her hands with a groan, “Ugh, why does it sound so bad when you say it like that?!”

“Uh, sorry. Poor choice of words” she bit back regretfully, “Let me rephrase that question. How or I guess when did this all happen?”

Nicole smoothed back a few stray hairs that had fallen out of her small ponytail, taking a deep breath as she tried to figure out herself where it all started.

“I honestly don’t know Riles. After that shit show with Shae three years ago I decided that I was dumb to think marriage could work. I mean look at my parents, right?” the redhead scoffed, leaning back into the couch not able to look anywhere but the dark screen of the small tv that sat on a wooden milk crate at the opposite side of the room. Riley might’ve been her best friend, but these still were the kind of talks that Nicole never really had with anyone. Her partner was well aware of this rare conversation and knew that now wasn’t the time for snarky remarks or jokes.

“It was fine at first, just keeping everything casual and all. Never seeing the same girl more than three times, hooking up with whomever, whenever. But then when we had the police gala last year and they were giving out awards for outstanding officers. I saw all of the wives and husbands standing in the crowd looking so proud and the moments they shared with their officer when they stepped off the stage.” Nicole shook her head, unsure of how to describe what she had felt. “It wasn’t until that moment that I finally realized how unhappy and lonely I was. That I was never going to get that type of happiness, especially if I was too scared to even try and find someone that I could connect with.”

Riley didn’t know how to respond without fear of saying the wrong thing or ruining the security that her best friend felt with her in that moment. Instead of words, she reach over and placed her hand on Nicole’s forearm, giving her a gentle squeeze of comfort and compassion. Nicole offered her a small smile of thanks, still too embarrassed to make eye contact with her friend.

“After that night I started looking around on dating sites and went on a couple of dates with a more open mindset, but I still couldn’t find the connection that I was looking for. I gave up for a little bit and threw myself into work until we were working that break in case at the college in Southfield.” 

Riley hummed, remembering the case that Nicole was talking about. It wasn’t anything crazy, just a bunch of idiot kids that had broken into the science building. Based on the items that were stolen from the labs, they had found that the idiots were just trying to make their own version of MDMA or better known as Ecstasy. It had been entertaining when they finally caught up to the students. Apparently they had been successful in their experimentation, but thankfully they were very cooperative while being detained even while being in the midst of their psychedelic experience, however Riley could’ve done without their constant need to touch everything. Running her mind back through her memory, she did remember Nicole disappearing for a few minutes while they were walking back to their patrol car from the labs at the college.

“We were on our way back to the car when I saw a flyer on one of the bulletin boards. A team of professors were advertising about putting an experimental focus group together based around arranged marriage.”

“Dude what happened to Nicole ‘Fuck the Patriarchy’ Haught?!” Riley blurted, unable to retain commentary.

“I know!” Nicole whined, finally looking up at her friend. “I snagged the paper and looked into it more when I got home that night. Trust me, I hated myself for even allowing it to catch my eye, but the more I read about it the more I got interested and even started to get my hopes up a little. It wasn’t an arranged marriage in the traditional sense. The whole idea was taking each applicant and running a series of test on personality, culture and a bunch of different stuff and seeing if they could use that science to find two people that could be compatible. They were basically doing all the hard work for you! So I figured what the hell do I have to lose and I applied. They accepted me, I completed all their tests and questionnaires and then a couple of months when by and I didn't hear from them so I figured it just didn't work out. I mean what’re the odds of them finding a match for a heterosexual couple, if not it being even less likely to find one for a homosexual woman, right?”

“I’m sorry, did you just say...months?” there was the slightest hint of offense in Riley’s question.

“Yes and I’m sorry but I was embarrassed Riles”

Trying to remind herself that the redhead was entitled to her own private life that didn’t always revolve around Riley, she rolled her eyes in self annoyance,” My bad… continue”.

“So like I said, months went by and I didn't hear from them, but then I get an email yesterday saying that they think they found a compatible match for me and asked if I would like to continue with the research study and follow through with the marriage.”

“And based on your email you said ‘yes’ “ Riley finished, motioning to the laptop that still sat open on the coffee table. Nicole looked away sheepishly. “So what happens now? Do you meet each other? Do you have a wedding? What happens after?” Riley was so confused and it was quite evident in her waterfall of questions. Nicole could only laugh, thankful that the emotional side of the conversation was done and now she actually had someone she could talk about this with. Truth be told, even she was a little overwhelmed with everything and the changes that were about to happen, but maybe this would all settle a little easier with her apartment finally clean, a belly stuffed with pizza and a late night with her best friend.

“Tell you what, get your laundry started and order two pizzas. I’m gonna finish cleaning up. I have a feeling this is going to be a late night” the officer stood up and patted her blonde friend on the shoulder, walking back towards her bed, picking up random pieces of her own laundry along the way.  
Riley shook her head as she tried to wrap her mind around the conversation they apparently just finished and all the new information to be had, “‘Meet people in the academy’, they said. ‘You’ll be life long friends’, they said.” 

This was about to be some next level shit.


End file.
